Carolina and I were standing at a counter in a warehouse
where men's suits were made. I was contemplating buying a new
suit and asked a man behind the counter for some information. He
handed me a catalog which contained different colors. I concluded
that a person simply picked out the color of the suit and that the
suit would be made in that color.

I was now concerned about the
price. The man began explaining in a rather garbled way that a
single suit cost around $179. But two suits costs less per
suit, and if a person bought six suits, the price fell to $109
per suit.

I noticed some other
customers had crowded in near to me and were listening to the
man's explanation of the prices. Apparently the other customers
were also interested in the prices but had been too timid to ask
and were simply listening to the answers given to my questions.

Deciding to go ahead and order
six suits, I looked through the catalog and quickly picked out
the colors I wanted. The man behind the counter seemed impatient
to get back to something else he had been doing, so I quickly
gave him my order. He said the suits would be ready in a few
days, and we left.

Once we were outside on the
street, Carolina began criticizing the colors which I had picked,
saying they weren't colorful enough. I also had doubts
about whether I had picked the right colors, but for different
reasons. I thought I should have picked darker colors. I usually
liked dark blue suits, and thought I should have even made one of
the suits black. Instead I had picked lighter colors, and had
even picked white as one of the colors. Where was I going to wear
a white suit? To a wedding? And I wondered if I should have
ordered so many suits right now. Perhaps I should have only
ordered two to start with, to see if I liked them. I could have
then ordered more later.

***

I was driving a car in which
Carolina was sitting in the back seat and my mother was sitting in the front passenger seat. I was
still thinking about whether I had made the right decision in
ordering the suits. But as I drove I gestured with my right hand
in my mother's direction, and she grabbed my hand and bit my
little finger. She didn't bite hard enough to hurt me, but she
made me angry. I was already angry with her and this gave me the
excuse I needed. I stopped the car and in a rage told her I was
going to walk home. She didn't seem to care and as I stepped
form the car and began walking down the street, I heard the car
pull away without me.

I was certainly relieved to be
away from her. She had really been getting on my nerves. I saw
that I was on a street in the west side of downtown Portsmouth, and that I was headed in the direction of
downtown. I straightened out the collar of a dark, short-sleeved
pullover shirt which I was wearing. It was nothing fancy, but I
thought I looked all right.

The house where I was staying
with my mother was on the outskirts of the other side of town; it
would be a long walk. That didn't particularly bother me
because I had all day; I might even go to a movie.

***

I had walked into some kind of
large government office, apparently in a courthouse, obviously an
office where maps could be obtained. A man was sitting at a desk,
talking to someone, almost in the tone of a class lecture. He was
talking about how topography maps had been made of the entire
United States, and how useful the maps were in exploring the
country. He seemed to think that the maps were of vital
importance, and that not many people knew about them.

He also mentioned that a
terrorist group was interested in the maps. In that regard, he
talked about some cabins in the forest which he expected the
terrorist group to burn down in the summer.

I was quite interested in
obtaining some of the maps. Apparently they were available to
anyone who wanted them, although few people knew about them.